If the last episode was a step in the right direction, then this one is a leap—even though you kind of wonder whether Shark just figured out that it had wasted talent warming the benches until now. It took a good while, but it feels like the show is starting to really deliver on the richness of its setups and promises, and it all started by putting a little bit of distance between Yi-soo and his aquarium. (As they never said in Finding Nemo, “Fish are friends, not scene fodder.”)

Hopefully the upward tick in ratings reflects this show’s turn for the better, since Episode 12 finally broke the double-digit mark with 10.3%. Phew. I can’t remember when 10% ever felt like such a huge success in dramaland, but there’s a first time for everything.

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EPISODE 12 RECAP

The confrontation conversation continues between Hae-woo and Yi-soo, with Hae-woo’s declaration that she would follow him to the depths of hell if it meant finding Yi-soo again. “And we’ve both already arrived at the gates of hell.”

“Have we?” Yi-soo smirks. “This is only the beginning. If you’re afraid, it’s not too late to run away now.”

Hae-woo doesn’t hesitate. “No. I’m going to do what I have to do, not because that’s what Kim Jun wants me to do, but because I want to find the truth myself. That’s the only way I’ll be able to bring Han Yi-soo back again.”

Both of them struggle with their grief separately, with Yi-soo fighting the urge to turn back. Memories of his youth with his father and sister flash through his mind, but it’s the memory of being in the phone booth when the truck plowed into it that strengthens his resolve for revenge. Angry Revenge Bot Yi-soo returns.

Joon-young looks like he’s biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood when he returns home to find Daddy Jo drunk and gloating over what a good deed he did in going public about the hit-and-run, and how easy it was in the end. “Anyone can make a mistake, and it was just an accident.”

“Someone died because of your mistake,” Joon-young finally says, unable to hold back anymore. Ohhh man.

Daddy Jo starts blustering after Joon-young excuses himself: “No matter how people pretend to be righteous, they’re all the same. Who do you think made your father the Chief Prosecutor?” Ohhhh man. He’s going there.

Grandpa Jo comes out yelling to stop the ruckus, and slaps his son hard across the face. He actually seems bewildered and angry that his son could be such a waste, so I don’t think this slap was just for show.

Oh gosh, this breaks my heart: Joon-young flashes back to the moment his brother was shut away in a mortuary drawer, and how he couldn’t even control his grief. I almost forgot that his brother was killed in a hit-and-run accident—that would explain why Daddy Jo’s hit-and-run affects him on such a personal level.

Prosecutor Oh goes out drinking alone and receives a mysterious voice recording, where a man’s voice stutters out how he was only doing what Prosecutor Oh told him to do in covering up the hit-and-run, and how he only hid the watch. This could only be Detective Jung.

What’s worse is that he goes on in the recording to state that he’s sure Grandpa Jo killed Yi-soo and his father, and that Prosecutor Oh knowingly turned a blind eye. Prosecutor Oh is shaken by this damning evidence and tries to reach for his dropped cigarette…

…But he gets a call from Yi-soo with a warning that smoking is bad for his health, which serves as a public safety announcement and an indicator that Yi-soo is watching him.

“I’m told that you lost your second son in a hit-and-run accident,” Yi-soo says over the phone. “While covering up the hit-and-run accident of a powerful man, weren’t you ashamed to face your dead son?” Ouch. But it’s not like he’s lying.

Prosecutor Oh is scared out of his wits and wants to know what Yi-soo wants, but Yi-soo merely tells him, “What goes around comes around.” He offers Prosecutor Oh a chance to redeem himself with three days to reveal the truth, a sort of grace period that he says the man owes to his good-hearted son. Tick-tock.

Hae-woo agonizes over her conversation with Yi-soo before she finds her dad outside their home, and he’s well aware that she gave the video recording over to the police. Needless to say, he doesn’t want to call her his daughter.

She goes inside to apologize to her grandpa, who waves it all off as being something she couldn’t avoid. It’s only when he asks if she has any idea who sent the video that she hesitates and eventually lies by claiming she has no idea.

It’s Grandpa Jo’s turn to look shifty when she asks him about his father all of a sudden, and we know it’s because of the picture, and he knows it’s because of the picture, but neither of them know the the other knows.

Hae-woo must suspect her grandpa of something, because she continues to ask about his father’s past even after he shows her the one remaining portrait of his father. According to him, there are no family photos of them together because a fire destroyed their village and home. Seems awfully convenient.

As for the story of his father’s death, Grandpa Jo claims that he was unjustly accused and in prison before the country was liberated in WWII, only to be captured by the North Korean army during the Korean War and shot to death without trial. During that time, Grandpa Jo claims he wasn’t with him because he was in hiding.

Hae-woo can’t provide a reason for her sudden interest in his past other than curiosity, but she leaves Grandpa Jo looking mighty troubled.

She asks about Joon-young since she heard about the argument from Mrs. Park, but he’s taken the argument with her dad in stride. It’s only when she apologizes that he notes how suspicious it is that she’s been saying sorry so often: “I feel as if you’re keeping many secrets from me.”

I love that the camera pans to her nervous face with their wedding portrait behind her. She has been keeping secrets, and she seems hardly relieved when he’s all, Just kidding! (Is he, though?)

While Grandpa Jo presumably places a call to Clicky to check if Kim Jun is really Yi-soo, we cut to Yi-soo considering the banchan that Mrs. Park gave him. It’s like he’s not allowing himself to eat it because it’d be like admitting that he cares, but who knows.

Yi-soo gets a surprise visit from Secretary Jang, who’s unwittingly left an opportunity for Dong-soo to happily force his way into the apartment with gifts of fried chicken. (Man, the fried chicken industry has a pretty aggressive marketing strategy in dramas these days.)

He loves to talk, so he mentions how the chicken came from the shop Yi-hyun’s mother works at since they’ve fallen on some hard times. And Yi-hyun’s got problems of her own, since the truth came out about her father’s non-involvement with Daddy Jo’s hit-and-run case.

Dong-soo’s lucky to have thick skin since Yi-soo flat-out tells him not to come without calling first, which he just brushes off by saying that everything’s better with company, including food. His cheery attitude actually coaxes a smile out of Yi-soo, which Dong-soo is quick to point out. “You’re really handsome when you smile!” Preach it, Dong-soo.

Detective Byun finds Yi-soo reading the articles about Daddy Jo’s apology to the victim, and the heartbroken look on her face when she turns to him just punches me in the gut. She’s looking to her adoptive dad for guidance, since she can’t figure out why she can’t be happy when her dead father has finally been cleared of blame.

But the reason becomes clear as she starts speaking through her tears: “How can people be like this? My dad was the hit-and-run culprit even after he was dead. But, since he [Daddy Jo] apologized and regrets it, all is forgiven? It’s all over? He’s not punished for any of it, and it’s all over just like that? Then, my poor dad…” Gah. Now she’s making ME cry.

Prosecutor Oh nervously calls Grandpa Jo with news of the ultimatum he received to tell the truth before his caller goes to the press. It seems like Prosecutor Oh is always leaning toward making the right decision, but Grandpa Jo always reels him back with promises of career advancement.

Secretary Jang considers a letter Junichiro asked her to deliver to Grandpa Jo, which he claimed would serve as protection for Yi-soo, and she fights the urge to see what’s inside.

He then gets a call from the video forensics team and heads over with Hae-woo, but wants to set the record straight before they head into the unknown, especially when even his partner is sure that Grandpa Jo was behind the murders of their colleagues. They both agree that Envelope Professor and Yi-soo’s dad were murdered over a secret in the documents (he makes a point to say Yi-soo is missing, not dead), and that the secret has to do with Hae-woo’s great-grandfather.

Here’s where he posits a new theory, at least to Hae-woo: that the only person who could be truly afraid of that secret being revealed is Grandpa Jo.

Hae-woo listens, but she doesn’t readily agree—in her eyes, her grandpa has been nothing but upright and moral, so there must be someone else involved. Detective Byun doesn’t argue since they’re only going off speculation at this point, but his point is merely to prepare her for the possibility that this secret could be damning. And if she doesn’t have the stones for it, it’s time to step back.

“Everyone is forcing me to choose,” Hae-woo sighs. Detective Byun finds that odd, but he doesn’t know that Yi-soo gave her the same option earlier.

They visit the forensics tech who claims that Detective Oh came to him with an old picture the day before he died to ask if it had been photoshopped. He only got to look at it briefly, but he remembers that it looked like a father and son and that the inscription on the back that had Grandpa Jo’s first name on it.

More importantly, the tech remembers that Detective Oh had been looking for a photo copier that day, so it’s possible that a copy of the photo might exist.

But then we see Prosecutor Oh pull out what looks like a copy of the incriminating photo. Huh. How’d he end up with it?

Hae-woo sends Soo-hyun on a photo-finding mission (why does it always feel like he’s always the third wheel on their detective dates?), but she can’t figure out why a picture of her great-grandfather with her grandfather would be such a big deal.

In the meantime, Detective Byun gets a call that the CCTV footage from the library was stolen, which we know was Yi-soo’s doing. At least they know which one Detective Oh visited.

Yi-soo goes to visit his sister at work, only to find her on her way out for lunch. He’s so unsure as he works up the courage to ask her if she wants to eat lunch with him, which is admittedly a pretty weird spot to put her in.

She rejects him at first because of how awkward it would be to eat with someone she doesn’t know, and Yi-soo’s feelings are all hurt but he takes it in stride. Then Yi-hyun changes her mind, brightens her smile, and agrees to lunch. His tentative but genuine smile is worth the price of admission alone—Yi-soo’s always his best when he’s with her.

The two are adorable during lunch, and we finally see a lighter side of Yi-soo as Yi-hyun whispers, “This place is really expensive,” only for Yi-soo to whisper back, “I have a lot of money.” It’s like he’s meeting a joke halfway, but the point is that he’s having fun.

Yi-hyun recommends the spaghetti even though she hasn’t been able to eat it since she was young, prompting Yi-soo to remember the last time he talked to her (from the phone booth), when she was eating the spaghetti Hae-woo made. Aww. She can’t eat it because it reminds her of his accident.

So Yi-soo orders the dish for her anyway, and encourages her to eat just a little. He’s being brotherly by trying to get her over her fear, but he pushes too hard and she breaks: “I’m not fine. I hate it. I said I hate it!”

Tears fall as she continues brokenheartedly, “My brother must have been in a lot of pain, and I was eating spaghetti without knowing a thing. My brother died while I was eating spaghetti.”

She rushes out, and Yi-soo follows to apologize. He asks her to go eat somewhere else with him, and when she doesn’t want that, he even offers to just have a picnic with her as he grabs her hand. Yi-soo, staaahp. It’s too awkward, this girl doesn’t know you. (Technically.)

Even Yi-hyun gets weirded out at how forward he is and asks, “Do you… possibly like me? I like you too, but… not in that way.” AWKWARDCUTE! (I’m so confused right now.)

Yi-soo’s smile looks more like a cringe. “I like you too, but… not in that way, either.” It clears the air a bit, but Yi-soo remains unaware that Clicky is watching.

Grandpa Jo gets the envelope that Junichiro sent in secret, and in it is a copy of The Picture.

Our investigative duo heads to the library, and Hae-woo finds the picture of her great-grandfather in one of the books Detective Oh read before he died. The CCTV records from that day are gone, but Hae-woo thinks that it couldn’t have been the murderer who stole them in an effort to cover his tracks.

It’ll take days to recover the lost footage, so Detective Byun asks Hae-woo to visit Yi-hyun in the meantime and offer some comfort.

Another Clicky report tells Grandpa Jo that Yi-soo went to visit his sister, so now he’s sure that Kim Jun is Yi-soo. But Junichiro was right in that sending Grandpa the picture would offer some protection for Yi-soo, since Grandpa doesn’t want to kill him until he knows what cards his enemy is holding, and who’s controlling him.

Cut to: Junichiro, the man controlling Yi-soo. He warns his reluctant protege that Grandpa Jo must already know his identity, and that Yi-soo will need to up his ante if he hopes to defeat him. But Yi-soo lies that his only interest is in business, which Junichiro knows to be a lie.

And just like Junichiro predicted, Grandpa Jo calls Yi-soo to invite him over.

Hae-woo sneaks into her grandpa’s study while he’s gone, and attempts to open the one drawer he has locked. She’s able to cover her tracks when he suddenly appears, but he knows she’s been snooping. Eek.

Joon-young remembers Daddy Jo’s accusation that his father isn’t as righteous as he thinks and takes this issue to Soo-hyun to ask him, point blank, whether his father already knew the sordid details surrounding Daddy Jo’s hit-and-run.

He displays the same tenacity as his wife when he realizes Soo-hyun’s reply is a lie, and wants to know how long his father has been involved—has it been since the accident twelve years ago? Soo-hyun’s affirms the truth.

Joon-young is faced with a double betrayal, because it means that everyone knew about his father’s involvement—including Hae-woo—but no one thought to tell him. Poor guy. He can’t help but cry on his way home, and almost gets into an accident because of it.

He doesn’t pick up Hae-woo’s call while she’s at the juice bar with Yi-hyun, since she’s gone to tell Yi-hyun that it’s okay for her to be mad at her unni, considering what her father did to Yi-hyun’s family.

Yi-hyun can’t hold it against her since she knows it isn’t Hae-woo’s fault, and Hae-woo gives her some words of wisdom Yi-soo told her long ago: “Even though you get hurt by those who are petty, you don’t have to become one of them.” She’s bracing her for the hurt to come without telling her the truth.

Yi-soo shows up for his meeting with Grandpa Jo, and it looks like he’s holding back from clocking his elder in the face when Grandpa dances around with mentioning the name Han Yi-soo and how he thought Yi-soo was dead until only recently.

Grandpa Jo’s poker face reigns supreme as he tells Yi-soo that he’ll be rejecting Junichiro’s offer to join their hotels together, and offers Yi-soo some advice: “No human being is pure enough, or perfect enough, to judge another human being.”

He goes on about how the truth can be someone’s downfall, but Yi-soo just replies that he’s a simple man—he gives back to those who’ve helped him, and pays back those who’ve hurt him.

The two go back and forth a bit, both struggling to have the last word without seeming like they are. Grandpa Jo gives him another piece of advice: “The truth that you believe in is not the whole truth. And don’t forget who you’re dealing with.”

Yi-soo’s jaw clenches, and he’s clearly using all his control in this underhanded-yet-not battle of wills as he promises that he remembers everything (because of his apparent obsessive compulsive disorder), and that he keeps all those details he meticulously compiles for future use. Translation: I’ll be coming after you soon.

But at least Yi-soo takes a look at Grandpa Jo’s extensive library while remembering that he’d once mentioned how he frequents the used bookstore, and is that much closer to finding Clicky because of it.

Prosecutor Oh is about to call Grandpa Jo to tell him he’ll be resigning (and ideally taking the high road Yi-soo offered), but Joon-young’s arrival stops him. He scrambles to hide the evidence as Joon-young looks him in the eye and asks him if he thought of his dead son when he covered up for Daddy Jo’s hit-and-run. Ouuuuuch.

“Who am I supposed to believe now?” Joon-young asks tearfully. “I’ve always respected and believed in you more than anyone. But now, I can’t believe anyone… I can’t believe in anyone anymore.”

Hae-woo catches up with Joon-young in the hall, having already guessed what happened. He’s not in the mood to talk to her, but she pleads with him to understand his father, who probably didn’t have a choice. “It’s my dad’s fault. It’s my dad who did wrong.”

Joon-young shrugs out of her grip: “I have nothing to talk about with you.”

Yi-soo goes to the used bookstore for his investigation, but ends up reminiscing about Hae-woo instead. She’s come to the same place to escape, but leaves when she sees Yi-soo there.

He starts to follow after her, but a sound stops him. Click click click. He traces his steps back and spies Clicky in the bookstore, pen in hand.

Now he knows that the bookstore ajusshi is the poison pen assassin, and as their eyes meet, Yi-soo grins.

COMMENTS

It’s like I blinked and Shark got better. Did it just take Yi-soo getting off his bum, or are all the hours of setup finally paying off? It never felt like this show didn’t know where it was going, but for a while I was wondering if I’d care by the time we ever got there. Then this episode happened, and I wound up caring about pretty much everyone we’re supposed to care for—even Yi-soo. (To an extent. Let’s not go crazy here.)

Yi-hyun and Joon-young brought the emotional bacon home and then some, which did a great service to this show as a whole in showing us how all these big events and secrets are affecting our characters on a personal level. Her pain, which was so evident without being overbearing, was almost like a wake-up call to those of us who’ve started to become desensitized to all of the Jo Family’s past wrongdoings (or any of the wrongdoings in general, really). Maybe all that’s just fancy talk for the fact that she brought some much-needed emotional stakes to a show that definitely needed them.

I absolutely loved that brother and sister got to spend some actual time together, and the awkward situations arising from Yi-hyun not knowing who he really is were funny and cute… up until I started to realize just how much Yi-soo was exacerbating her suffering by not telling her the truth. For as much as she humanized him in a single scene, an inevitable side effect was that I started expecting humanity from Yi-soo—and I didn’t really get the sense that he was losing sleep over Yi-hyun’s evident trauma.

That could be the intended effect in that we’re shown how much Yi-soo is willing to sacrifice for his revenge, but we’ve gotten to the point where if even his enemy AND his enemy’s maid know who he is, then it’s time for him to either come clean or prove why he can’t. Why does Hae-woo need to prove it for him? Why does Yi-hyun need to suffer for him? Why is he causing so much suffering?

Joon-young finally got a moment to shine, too—I was worried that he’d find out about his father’s corruption but take his side anyway, and was pleasantly surprised to see him take the moral high road instead. What added that extra oomph for me was how his stance made so much sense with his backstory, so that his father was not only betraying general human decency, he was betraying the very memory of his dead son.

When Joon-young confronted his dad over a a detail that had honestly slipped my mind for a little while, it was like everything suddenly clicked for him as a character. So far, he’s proven to be the most honest, considering the fact that Hae-woo has been lying to him almost nonstop since this case began. Even his dad earns some points in constantly displaying his weakness as a person, and how he would wrestle with his better self and lose when it came to Grandpa Jo—those moments make it a little easier to scrounge up some pity for him, even if there’s no forgiveness.

Last but not least, Hae-woo handled the possibility that her grandpa might be involved in all of this surprisingly well—it matters less that she denied it initially, and more that she couldn’t ignore that part of her that doubts, questions, and desires the truth above all things. It would have been out-of-character for her to not have questioned her belief in him, so I’d say that at least on the character consistency front, Shark is swimming right along.

I’m happy where the show is taking us. In an almost self-indulgent manner, the show began by taking us off the beaten path where the heroine is married but not to the hero. The narrative is awashed with a sombre moodiness that sometimes borders on being overly deliberate.

The all too quick initial reaction is to think little of the story line. It started off with a murder or two and we thought we had it all figured out. So what’s there left to watch – just HW playing catching up, picking up the pieces YS leaves behind?

But then the pace suddenly picks up, the plot tightens and then the PD proves that he can deliver a far from conventional example of the genre with his oblique approach after all.

YS is played impassively almost to the point of rigor mortis, we nearly forgot he’s ever human. It was HW, the radiant SYJ who provided the pulsating emotions that was noticeably missing in YS. Just when all hope is (almost) lost, we get to see tantalizing traces of humanity in YS – shock, loss, despair, confusion, resolution. It is good to finally see that he’s a fallible human being like the rest of us, rather than a self-professed God who tries to make all coincidences fate. YS’s downbeat persona is perhaps a calibrated hint on an outcome where YS’s vendetta will leave everyone much more deprived than from where they began with. Such is the uneasiness I felt after HW delivers her quiet resolution of following YS to hell if that is what it takes to stop him.

The presence of both Grandpa Jo and YS forces a comparison and underscores some differences. Grandpa Jo is seeking to protect his agenda (what exactly is the truth behind the truth? What’s with the photograph? Is it a family secret that he’s protecting? What if it isn’t? Then what could it be? Many burning questions I want to ask Jo) by putting on the facade of a stoic, amiable and respectable man. YS is trying his best to put forth his vendetta of dismantling Jo’s hidden agenda by hiding his pain, hurt and emotions under a steely demeanor. It’s fair to say that Grandpa Jo makes a formidable adversary, closer in fact to being a self-made God than YS will ever be, even if his only minion seems to be a fifty-year old book shopkeeper (but never has an assassin this old made me go “YEEPS!” whenever he comes on screen). I was almost afraid when YS looks like he will miss the old man at the bookshop. I’m so happy that he found him (what will YS do next?? I wouldn’t want to go too near him – make sure he doesn’t have his pen with him).

The conflict between Joon Young and his father is made more interesting by HW’s deliberate attempt to protect both of them by denying JY the truth. No doubt she has determination of steel to rival YS’s but she knows that JY’s faith in contrast will crumble under the truth. That denial, however, is unfortunately going to cost her relationship with JY. JY is much more human than both HW (who’s almost like a super woman) and YS (a steely robot) combined. I will really like to see how he takes the story further.

Mrs Park, Sec Jang and Yuchimuro at the sidelines continue to fascinate me with their presence. I really hope YS digs into Mrs Park’s banchan soon because I’m half (ok, make it 3/4) hoping that Mrs Park has left some important message or clue for him (if not, why the emphasis on the banchan at all?!) Sec Jang is as much a mystery as Yuchimuro. Does she know YS’s identity? How and since when? So many questions, so little answers? Shall we brainstorm how and when and why she knows YS’s real identity? What is Yuchimuro’s real stake in the whole schema of things by riding on YS’s revenge? Surely not just to get a PhD in philosophy (re life is about making choices. DUH) !! I want to know!!

The best moments for me this week belong to YH, YS’s sister. I couldn’t stop myself from shedding a tear upon hearing her heartbroken and heartfelt cries and pleas to an uncaring world to turn back time, to return her father to her. And she also brings back the best of YS. It was in that rush hour of a lunch time I was able to see a faded yet genuine reflection of a young YS in the adult YS that has been sorely missed since he transited into adulthood.

To your excellent post, I might add this. Shark works for me powerfully because Han Yi Soo (the avenging angel) contributed nothing to the original wrongdoing. Nor was he a hapless roadkill in the tragedy, since he himself nearly died from fighting against it. As far as victims go, I could not hope for more.

In contrast, our mistaken hero of Nice Guy forced his own incarceration over his girlfriend’s objection, which deprived his subsequent revenge of moral force and even made it farcical, not to mention hypocritical. I never could root for an idiot.

Shark also works because of what is at stake. Here, it is nothing short of primal. His dad didn’t just get killed, but was framed for vehicular murder first. His baby sister was left an orphan. And he himself was a target for assassination. Can a guy need more for revenge?

In contrast, “I Want To Be Human” in Gu Family Book begs for “Why Ever Would You Want That?” Haven’t you watched X-Men or Star Trek to know that superhuman abilities are assets, not liabilities, in this world? Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.

For this viewer, the tense ambience and the slow-but-deliberate (and often silent) buildup of the story is simply delicious. It helps that my enjoyment is not undone by inherent and incurable flaws in a drama’s original premises.

Thank you for this!
It took some time, but that the completely cured bacon (Is there still unhealthy bacon out there?) was brought and cooked. Let’s see what they do with it next.

Love your point that Sharkman, for all his pretty and mooney eyes for his sister, is still effing with her by not telling her he’s alive. He still has time to do one thing right by revealing his identity to her before she finds out from everyone else who knows.
He needs to apologize profusely, and attempt to explain why he needed to disappear. Although this little girl doesn’t care about avenging her father’s death. All this time she has just wanted her brother around, like he promised back back when Dad died.
Can Yi-hyun be healed at all once she knows? I see more bitterness added to her sad soup if YS announces who he is, only to die again at the hands of the evils who killed Dad and got rid of him all those years ago.

Watching HW unravel all of the pain and mystery is interesting, but I get a sick feeling when I consider where we are headed. As determined as that pair is to go to the gates of hell, I would prefer somewhere pretty, please.
Can’t we all just be friends? Can’t we go to Jejedo and eat abalone and tangerines?

Yes finally it broke the 10% margin. I loved episode 12 so much that I had to rewatch it. It brought so much chills in my spine. I especially love the montage where Yi Soo was walking like a weaken and beaten man until he suddenly remembers his purpose for revenge. Really, nicely done.

This episode was good. I especially enjoyed the discussion between Yi Soo and grandpa was very interesting both of them giving veiled threats with each other yet the conversation was very civil. However, I wonder how Yi Soo is going to feel when he finds out about his own father sins and will it affect his path for revenge.

Yi Hyun’s pain felt so real as to the injustice that caused the demise of her family and yet the culprits are basking in their sin like its inconsequential. Joon Young’s eyes being opened to the sins of his own father and the fact that he feels he can no longer trust anyone as they will not tell him the truth.

The preview looks interesting, looking forward to it and I really appreciate getting the very fast subs of this show.

I am honestly getting very angry at Yi Soo for all the suffering he’s causing those who love him. Right now i do not careabout how much he suffered because all that suffering was in the past. In Incarnation of Money, baddies were constantly doing bad things…and young Cha Don and older Cha Don were still very much linked in our minds and on screen. Now, everytime they show a montage of old Yi Soo, I feel as if they are reminding me of that terrible trauma…and yet something doesn’t connect. It feels like just so much emptiness. Seriously glitch here.

Love second lead and now am totally hoping he and heroine get together. By the time this drama is finished — if Yi Soo doesn’t get his act together– I will not be happy if our heroine ends up with her husband (unless her husband divorces her.)

I keep wondering if Yi Hun will ever know that her brother is alive. A part of me thinks, he’ll die and give her his blood marrow but she will never know it was him because it’s best for her that she never know that Yi Soo had lived.

I really like Dad. I can’t help it. He is so totally out of control and helpless that he is the total polar opposite of Yi Soo and everyone else in this story. He’s refreshing that way cause everyone..from secretary to maid to courting ADA is being so restrained. With Grandpa the most restrained and controlled of all. (And I do not doubt that he would throw his own son under the bus if push ever comes to shove).

Daddy is a fool but he is an impassioned emotional unthinking fool…which is always nice to see.

Carole, it’s funny you mentioned Hae-Woo’s father, because he almost makes me laugh. The way he became so angry at Joon-Young’s perceived betrayal, he was almost stamping his little feet — he looked like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. I had to remind myself this was someone who ran over a man and never lost a night’s sleep over that.

But yes, amidst the restrained plotting and hidden agendas of Grandpa Jo, Hae-Woo, Yi-Soo, and even Mrs. Park, Drunk Daddy Jo is almost refreshing in his transparency.

1. HY is the hero? She was a rotten brat when she met YS, he supposedly cures her. She should have known her father was a bad man. She should know she is the privileged child of corruption. She does know horrific things were done to YS’s father and YS. And she is just now climbing up the learning curve? She lectures someone who she knows has been through hell about right and wrong when she has yet to face up to the wrong? She is the victim? She is a prosecutor with a low high school student’s grasp go the world of hard power? Aaiiiiiiiish.

2. YS is not a jerk for not outing himself to HY. She, and her supporters, would just lecture him without ever facing the abyss he has lived and they piously ignore. She won’t know it until she lives it, which, if she has the bond with YS the plot claims, is no biggie.

YS is a jerk for putting his sister at risk. His power was invisibility. One reason HY should never have known. Now the script writers have their conflicts and the audience will enjoy agonizing while his sister is stalked like Bambi and tortured. Who would let this happen to their kid sister? Who would believe anyone was a mastermind who would so expose their sister? None but fools, script writers, and those who love to agonize over fools.

Evil people. The writers that is. YS deserves hell and worse for doing this to his sister.

YS is a jerk. Telling his sister that she should try eating spaghetti would make sense if he said that he was alive and well but pushing her to eat the meal that triggers the most terrifying memories is cruel. He is cruel. He flashes back to bad things that happened to him to find strengths in hatred and HW is right that he has become like people he hates the most.

I would give his sister more credit for being preceptive, kind, and compassionate. I don’t think she would have dismissed YS suffering. She is angry that her father’s death was unjustified and it is someone else’s unpunished crime. She is sane and has a good head on her shoulders.

I really have to disagree with your harsh assessment of Hae Woo. While her behavior was ostensibly bratty when we were first introduced to her, she was seen to be principled and willing to stand up for her friends from the very beginning. As an adult, she continues to act kindly even to those who are not her social equal.

You can’t pick the family you’re born into, and she can’t be blamed for being a “privileged child of corruption,” just as someone shouldn’t earn brownie points of sorts for being born into poverty. In fact, you could argue that her choosing to pursue a career as a prosecutor, as opposed to just living off the family money, makes her a finer person than someone who wouldn’t have those choices and temptations.

What has she done wrong that she must “face up to?” When faced with proof of her father’s wrongdoings, she turned that over to the police. She is not running away from the detective’s suspicions of her grandfather. She is putting her career, her family, and her marriage on the line in the pursuit of justice for Yi-Soo. To me these are acts of a mature, principled woman.

And we must remind ourselves that in his allegedly justified pursuit of “justice,” Yi-Soo has *killed* people. So yes, I think she is completely justified in lecturing him on that and trying to get him to stop. She hasn’t gone through everything he has, but she’s been through plenty, and they have history together. As the person who loved and mourned him and is risking EVERYTHING for him and the truth, she has damn well earned the right to caution him, especially when he’s going off the rails in a big way without regard for anyone else but him.

I think YS had no choice but to hurt HW because she is grandpa Jo’s precious granddaughter. She would be the only one who potentially helps him bring the grandpa down. When it comes to revenge, somebody will get hurt. That’s why YS chose to come back when HW got married because if she is single, both of them would have hard time controlling their feelings for each other and that could ruin his plan. Please don’t hate YS because he is the victim. I think he will realize how much he makes HW suffer at the end of this show.

I also think YS wants to tell his sister that he is alive but it could put her in danger and expose his weakness to the enemies. Visiting his sister frequently, I believe, is not part of his plan but he misses her so much so he couldn’t control himself seeing her. In addition to that, he is not too worry about her knowing she has a good family.

This drama makes sense to me from the very beginning. I hope it will gain better rating because all actors are great and the story line is awesome.

YS, according to the script, has deliberately let his enemies know who he is. That means they know his unprotected sister is their way to get him. Duh.

If he can’t keep from visiting her, which he did for twelve years per script writer gods, He should at least have the courtesy to tell his sister he is alive, buy her a ticket to LA, have an assumed identity waiting for her there, and then ship her off to Vanouver, Canada, so the bad guys can’t get her. Even in the script she is a human, not a pet.

Hah…. I don’t think he expected his enemy knew who he is this early… he want to make his enemy knew he is alive…. He is clueless chairman jo already know who he is until yoshimura told him… Hah he is not a robot….he was careless at this point. He is human after all who can makes mistake and can’t resist something he wanted to resist… He can did that in the past due to he stayed in japan….when he couldn’t got a chance to face her directly.

Revealed his identity means he has to sacrifice his revenge. Someone will start investigate him.

And by sending her sister to another country is the same you makes her stay away from her new family and makes her lonely. After lost everything… You can’t do that….
I just hope there is another way to save his sister from harm at least phisically……

Btw… He isn’t supposed to be likeable to us. He is an antihero…. And I believe the antagonist. It’s up to us to understand him… Pity him…. Or hate him completely…

I think YI-Soo the adult is playing the creepy card to much. It is making it to hard to feel anything for the character. And if he does that looking up from under the bangs thing one more time I will scream.

I don’t see YS is a jerk. He is both emotionally and physically suffering so he has a right to seek justice. He just has to sacrifice love for it.
Thanks to KNG’s excellent acting, I feel the adult YS’s pain and suffering and understand him. I don’t know why other people don’t feel the same way.

But this isn’t justice. Justice would be getting Grandpa Jo and his flunky’s corruption aired and have them put to court. What he’s doing is slowly, cruelly stretching out their demise at the expense of his own loved ones. Hae Woo and Joon Young haven’t wronged him but they’re the ones who will suffer the most – because in vengeance, other people are expendable. Yi Soo is letting good, innocent people get hurt because it will feed his own hatred.

He tried to found justice in the court.. but he found out too early not all people in the court all are clean…. After what He had experience in the past (he almost died when he start to seek justice!), we can’t expect him to deal this case in the court accordingly. so he finally find another way… is that to force people in the court, from the behind to dig the case who had already forgotten even after his BIG incident!

But that is plot contrivance that makes no sense. Protection can’t just be ordered up. He unnecessarily creates the risk for one reason, it gives the writers, lazy writers, an easy conflict of young woman in danger variety, and so taps into audience passion. Just more violence against women pornography with a supposedly devoted brother unnecessarily triggering the risk …. As if there were not enough real violence against women…..

Anyone ever thought that YS never disclosed his identity bc 1) why would u tell ppl u KNOW have money and back up Ur plan so they can kill u and the ones u love 2) perhaps he never wanted his sister and HW to find out his identity is bc he knows he might now make it out alive. He is willing to change his face and leave his family for 12 yrs… I think he is willing to give up his life for the the justice that he craves for his father, his sister, and wat was taken from him. It’s not like he can say – hey guys I am back! By the way one of the riches and most powerful man grandpa Jo killed our father and targeted me, but i will keep u safe from him.

Oh, now I am so mad at YS. He wanted people to know that YS is still alive. He forced HW on a hunt for YS, methodically leaving clues and not hiding too much.

HW’s husband used to be his school friend! What is he doing kissing his friend’s wife and confusing her feelings?!!!

It’s not a good hiding strategy to send a telescope to the sister, frequent her workplace, and ask her out for lunch!

People already figured out he is YS by just watching how he interacts with his sister.

I am waiting for YS to admit that despite a new face, name, and unfortunate habits around fish tanks and paintings, he actually has a family, friends, and people who wait for him and care for him a lot. Eat the food from Ms. Park! Eat it! You will remember!

I like your name!
Yes, nam bo ra was pretty good in this episode. She’s not stellar but she’s doing a fine job at giving us a convincing performance as ji hyun.
I remember her in moon playing the bratty spoiled princess.

He even admitted that kissing HW wasn’t something that he planned. I think he could not control his emotion at that time when hearing HW mention about him. He missed her. Common, just one kiss. What is a big deal? He already held his feeling back for awhile. When in love, people forget everything even themselves, not just friend..YS behavior is understandable.

I thought it was funny that he was surprised gramps found out about his identity when yoshi told him. To think he pretty much slaps it on HW face who he is. That and all those weird stuff happened when he appeared. I dont get why HW has to suffer for him though. It wasn’t her fault not recognizing the evil on the grandfather who takes great care of her. The way YS is orchestrating everything is like he wants HW to hurt really bad in the end. It’s like the revenge was for all members of grandpa jo’s family.

My take on the picture. I may be wrong but it makes me think that maybe grandpa jo is not who he says he is. Maybe he took somebody elses identity, that of the son of the great grandpa jo. It’s all I could thinkn of why 1) it’s important to destroy all the pictures and 2) why everybody else who saw the pic or knew about it had to die.

I touched on a thought in a previous thread -that one of the show’s themes was the collateral damage to innocent people when you get involved in long, revenge-y schemes. This episode only reinforced that belief. Hae-Woo, Ji-Hyun, Joon-Young are all being hurt, but I don’t know that anyone cares about them. They’re just pawns in the game between Grandpa Jo and Yi-Soo. The story ramped up and I was happy to see that, but the damage to my favorite characters is accruing too, and that made me sad.

I’ll give the show one thing – I’m now really, REALLY curious to find out what exactly Haraboji did, what he did to Junichiro, and how this is all going to end. Things are getting “real,” as they say, and Shark is leaving me biting my nails after every episode.

I literally started watching this drama but I’m keeping track with the recaps. I’m happy it picks up by episode 12 since for the first few episodes I was getting tired of the slow pace and the continuous flashbacks. This probably explains the ratings which have been abysmal in the beginning. I’m more entertained watching the fashion which never disappoints. In fact, Prosecutor Jo is the only civil servant that can carry and afford a Prada Daisy Spring 2013 collection bag. I wrote about it on my blog: kdramastyle.blogspot.com
Now back to playing catch up as the characters try to figure out the transparent disguise.
Thanks again for the recap!